Evidently the company has left some images of their ‘Apollo’ build aka Windows Phone 8 right on their server for all the public to see. The images themselves aren’t that revealing—we see numerous sized tiles featuring the app, some in-progress chats and image examples. All in in all in looks nice but it’s not a major overhaul nor barely a minor one (not that we’re trying to pick on the team behind the app)...

The images were found by Windows Phone Daily and they also noted the calendar tile with the comment "Monday Morning WhatsApp released Windows Phone version - Mon, Nov 28, 10 AM". That could mean something but the Windows Phone 7.5 version also shares that date but actually came out in late September, so we wouldn’t put too much into it.

Though nothing too revealing is shown by the images it’s sure nice to see companies like WhatsApp pushing forward on Windows Phone and we look forward to taking their new version for a spin.

It's harsh because Whatsapp deserves it. Their platform is terribly slow and unreliable, you won't hear of any Whatsapp user that has never had troubles with sending and receiving messages. The aesthetics of the app are terrible, they should take a hint from the messaging hub, it is slow, the scrolling is half-assed, and it's just buggy. It's such a shame that Whatsapp is the most popular phone IM service because of how terrible it is, but I have to rely on it to communicate with other people.

I've used it on Mango as well, and I can easily agree with what everyone says. Though it's actually not that bad on a Windows Phone 8 device. It's faster and scrolling is nice and fluid, and hey, even notifications seem to come through faster!

oh my god, that's terrible...nothing changed (aesthetically, and i believe that bugs wouldve been fixed by then, making the app better)
but i really wish they do some more with it...perhaps make use of the large live tile to show messages, just like the native message tile :D

Yeah the number circles should be squares, but on a tile like that I'd much rather see the large number like on the native tiles. I really think the small black circle/square number should only appear on busy/image tiles, such as a game tile.

OMG there still are the same UGLY, custom-sized chat bubbles. When will they ever learn?! A company this size cannot hire decent coders and designers? Something is not right here. LINE and Kik are doing a much superior job. I don't want to be stuck with the same slow app in WP8... Hope they'll be able to use native code in order to speed up the process a bit

See I don't know why we just get a little more critical of them and say... Why don't you optimize the use of the medium and large tiles. How is this an update? They all should be using info from the app according to the size of the tile.

I'm pretty sure that's a WP7.8 version and not a WP8 one. There is no change at all except in tile sizes, so this may simply be the current WhatsApp but with additional assets for the new tile sizes. That would explain its absence from Marketplace

The phone is a Titan with WP7.8, which brings the new startscreen as confirmed. The notifications are squares as demoed on Windows Phone 8. It's safe to say this is an incomplete build of WP7.8, as WP8 already has square notifications and nothing has been said about it in WP7.8.

This is what happens currently. You get the Bing Maps control when you are verifying your location or looking up somebody else's, but the thumbnail shown in the message view is from Google Maps. Very odd, but one can assume it is because Bing Maps may not have an API to return a thumbnail.

I hope they use the message preview in the large tile, if they don't they're just idiot. I hope they try improve the wp experience, as in Android and iOS I think is completely done.
If I were microsoft I would definitely want whatsapp to be integrated with message hub, that would be so much win.

I haven't had any problems with my whatsapp so far. It may be a little slow, but has all the features you need. Only thing I would change with the wp8 version is the large tile notification to have some text message preview. =]

Am assuming,
It's HTC Titan, Running WP 7.8,
It's An early Biuld of WhatsApp cuz it has no emoji in it.
And most important, the Screen Shots tells me that there going to be a " native screen shot " in WP 7.8

I have no issues with Whatsapp, i am interested in seeing an explanation of the long load times.
When i tap the tile, it takes 3-4 seconds to get to my last chat window, is that too long?
My received/sent messages come in on time on both wifi/data, i have no issues getting a message as they are received. The notificatino may get backed up if there are a large load of messages coming and it plays catch-up, but other than that, no issue with receiving notifications. Of course the notifications dissapear after a bit, but that is an OS issue, not whatsapp.
The only issue ihave with whatsapp is not being able to attach videos, unless you take the video via whatsapp, but it does not save on your phone or at least i can't find out how to save the video.